Friday, October 16, 2015

Again, it depends on are you talking about democratic socialism, which is a very mainstream political philosophy in most of the developed world and gaining strength in America, or are you talking about Marxism. Which is complete state-control of the economy and society as general. Where the central state tells people what they can and can't do. Where they can work, where they can live and so-forth. What the right-wing in America has been successful at really since the 1930s is point most Socialists as Marxists, even most Socialists tend to be democratic and even Democratic. Where the Democratic Party has had a long history going back to the 1930s, or longer of having at least an unofficial wing of Democratic Socialists in the party who prefer to be called Progressives.

Democratic socialism, is not anti-capitalist and anti-private enterprise. A Democratic Socialist State if anything will use capitalism and private enterprise to fund their welfare state. To see that everyone has social insurance that they can turn to when they need it, but also to provide the basic services that Democratic Socialists don't trust the private sector to provide. Education, health care, health insurance, retirement, childcare, to use as examples. While the private sector would be left with most of the rest of the economy, short of national security, foreign policy, law enforcement, the judiciary, etc. In a social democracy, you tend to have big centralized government's, if not a unitarian state, with most of the governmental power being left with the national capital. But where the people would be free to live their own lives with basic individual rights. Including not having to live in poverty.

When I think of socialism, I think of Europe, especially Scandinavia and Britain and to a certain extent Canada. These are all countries that are all energy independent by the way. At least Canada, Britain and Scandinavia, so they can afford to be very socialist with their government's and economies. And when I think of highly statist and authoritarian third-world countries, I think of Marxists and Marxism. North Korea and Syria, great examples of that. And then you have highly developing and growing countries that use to be completely Marxist states both politically and economically that now have hybrid systems. Where they have private enterprise economies, but Marxist political systems. China, obviously, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Cuba would be another one. But there now two socialist factions in the world. The democratic faction being the largest and most successful.The Empire Files: Abby Martin- America's Unofficial Religion: The War On An Idea